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The situation after the First World war ^a[sic.] was one of strong prophetic feeling about the signs^b of the times, about the breaking in of a kairos,^c something eternal^d, something ultimate^e, into our temporal existence, and out of this consciousness an immense creativity,^f in all realms of spiritual^g life... After the Second World War^h there was also a kairos, but a negative one. It was not the feeling of something positive which can and must be done now, or which will come upon us now, but it was a feeling of a void, an emptiness, a vacuum. And then I said--and I repeat this now--this vacuum, which many of us still feel, should not be covered over by anything whatsoever, in terms of religionⁱ or culture^j. It should not be covered over by the resurgence of religion, as we experience it today, if this resurgence is a form of escape from the emptiness of our situation. It should not be covered over by cultural creativity, neither in the technical realm, where it is going on at a tremendous pace all the time, nor in the spiritual realms which are more fundamental. But if there is a basic feeling of emptiness, if the autonomous^k culture which has ruled for the last 500 years has come to a point where its lack of ultimacy^l is felt by ALL of us as a real threat to our personality^m and society, then perhaps a presupposition is given not in the sense of a kairos, where we are asked to act, but in terms of a kairos where we are asked to STAND, and to WAIT--to wait not in the sense of passivity, but in the sense of the most intensive tension--but not covering over the actual emptiness by activities in ANY realm, be it in the religious, be it in the cultural, realm. And this, I must conclude now, is indeed the meaning of this